Monthly Archives: January 2018

January 7th, 2018: Our church is focusing on prayer, digging into prayer both in our quiet time as well as together as a church. We believe that prayer can and will transform city. We believe that faith moves mountains, but prayer moves God. We are determined to stand up in prayer and cry out for his kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. If your prayer life is dry, if you need encouragement listen to this message and let it breath fresh inspiration in your heart.

This week we talked about how desperately our Spirit needs nutrition. How constantly we feed our bodies, yet how rarely we give ourselves the nourishment from heaven that Jesus talked about in John Ch. 4 Jesus said my nutrition comes from doing the will of the Father, Jesus said I am the bread of life, Jesus said man does not live on bread alone but on every Word that proceedith out of the Word of God. These are our sources of true nutrition, yet so often we distract ourselves with fleeting pleasures and fleeting promises that cannot satisfy, false forms of nutrition.

Weeding out the Consumerism Culture in Us: Just like the church in Corinth, we consume the latest information, consume possessions and things, strive for status, and even bring a consumer mindset into our Christian lives. Our culture promulgates information into our hearts and minds, leading us towards fleeting promises and unfulfilling paths. Paul emphasizes the we have a new life in Christ Jesus. One that is centered in Christ and finds its value therein. Not in our status, not in our belongings, not in our achievements, but in Christ, our center.

God has called us to cast out our divisions, yet our culture trains us to be individualistic and carve our own path. Instead of facing division and fighting for unity we often take our negative opinions, gossip, slander, and division and spread them around like bad seeds. Instead of facing the division in our own hearts and fighting for unity, we allow the negative seeds in our hearts to grow up and divide us. in John 13:35 Jesus said the world will know that you are my disciples by this, IF YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER. If we are not loving one another then we are no different than the world and our Christian witness is compromised. Above all else we need to stand up and fight for unity. To stand up and face our differences. As Christians we should never cover up bad seeds in our hearts, and never spread those bad seeds around like manure onto others. We shouldn’t ruthlessly spread information, we shouldn’t get upset when people try to correct us, and we should not gossip behind other peoples backs. Together we must stand firm in humility and love, trusting that as we lovingly exhort one another we will be sculpted in Unity.